On the Other Side of the Pizza
by Kime Tara
Summary: When the plate fell, the slums were crushed, but what happened to the other side...?


**On the Other Side of the Pizza**

By Kimetara

One-shot

            "Mommy!"  The five-year old yelled gleefully.  "Look Mommy!  It's the ice cream truck!  Can we go get some?"

            A tall, brown-haired woman nodded, smiling at her daughter's enthusiasm.  "Sure, honey.  Here you go."  The woman carefully placed two gil in the little girl's hand.  "Get your ice cream, then go over to Daddy, okay?"  She pointed to a man playing with a nine-year old boy nearby.

            "Okay!" she chirped.

            "Good girl, Essie."  Her mom patted Essie on the head.  In truth, her name was Estelle, but nobody called her that unless she was in trouble.

            Essie hurriedly ran out to the ice cream truck, the two gil clutched tightly in her hand.  By the park entrance, her mom watched her run, being careful to stay within quick reach of the little girl incase anything happened.

            "Chocolate fudge, please!" Essie yelled proudly once she reached the truck.  The man smiled down at her, nodded, and turned around for the requested ice cream.

            Suddenly, Essie heard a *PING*.  "Huh?  What was that?" she asked a seven-year old boy near her.

            "I dun-AHHHH!" the boy screamed.

            And no surprise.

            For the ground was moving.

            Essie's eyes widened.  "Mommy!  MOMMY!" she shrieked, losing her footing.

            Her mom had fallen to the floor at the sharp drop of one corner of the plate, the others soon to follow.  She didn't know what was going on, sure, the plate had the occasional quake, but it was never this severe...

            "Oh my gosh..." she whispered softly.  "OH NO!"  They were falling!  That was it!  Abruptly, the plate shuddered violently.  They had fallen.

The woman turned toward her daughter, to see how the young girl was faring.

            Except for being exceptionally scared and crying, Essie was all right.  However, that didn't stop her mom from becoming horrified.

            The truck was tipping over!

            Essie peeked up through her tears, and noticed the truck was falling too...suddenly, the little five-year old realized she was right where the truck would fall.  "MOMMY!" she screamed again.  "MOMMY, DADDY, MOMMY!!!!"

            Essie found herself shoved out of the way, right as the truck fell, scattering dust and ice cream.  Turning around with tear-filled eyes, Essie saw underneath the truck a hand with her mom's gold watch attached to it...

            ...but where was the rest of her mommy?

            "Mommy?" Essie whimpered.

            "Holy shit!"  A voice came from the inside of the truck, but it wasn't her mommy.  The ice cream man crawled out of the truck.  "What the hell was that?!"

            "You shouldn't say that," Essie said primly.  "Those are bad words."

            The man turned around to face Essie, when his jaw dropped and his eyes grew huge.  "Oh, good Lord..."

            "You shouldn't say that either," Essie said again, patiently.  "Mommy says never to use God's name in vain."

            "...Mommy?" the ice cream man said weakly.

           "Yes.  Have you seen her?" Essie asked eagerly.  "She has a watch, like the one right here."  Essie pointed down at the wrist.

            "Ohhhh..." the ice cream man moaned, before dropping to the floor and curling into a ball.  "No, no no no..."

            Essie looked at the man, confused.

            "Essie!"  The girl turned to see a man and a boy running toward her.

            "Daddy!  Edward!" Essie called happily.

            "Essie, are you alright?" the man asked anxiously, lifting Essie up.

            Essie smiled.  Daddy hadn't lifted her in a while, it was fun.  But she wished he didn't hug her so tight.  "I'm fine Daddy.  But where's Mommy?"

            The ice cream man looked up.  "You're her father?"

            "Yes."  Essie was set back down.  "Here, let me help you..."

            The ice cream man ignored his comment and simply pointed to the truck.  "I think your wife's under there."

            "...what?"  The man's eyes widened.  Essie's did too.

            "Mommy's under there?" she asked, first confused, then angry.  "You squished Mommy!" she yelled, running up the ice cream man and putting her little fists on her hips.

            The ice cream man looked straight at her, and Essie noticed he was crying.  Immediately, she stopped being mad.  "It's okay," she said, patting the man on the back.  "Mommy'll be back," she said confidently.  "Mommy always comes back."

            The man only cried harder.  Turning around, Essie noticed her daddy was crying too.  Edward looked just as confused as she did.

            That was when Essie noticed sirens in the distance, but quickly coming closer.  "See?" she said happily.  "Shinra's here!  They'll make it alright."

            Shinra was indeed here.

            But they didn't make it alright.

            There was a lot of talking that Essie didn't understand, and frankly, she wasn't interested.  She was just waiting for her mommy to come back, like she always did.

            But she never came.

            For the first time, Mommy never came back.

            Essie waited and waited, after the Shinra left, after they moved to Sector Eight.  She waited, and Mommy never came back.

            Whenever she asked Daddy about it, he'd just start crying.  Whenever she asked Edward, he got mad and told her not to be stupid.

            So Essie didn't ask anybody.

            She simply waited.

            Essie did hear there was this thing called a "funeral" coming up.  Whenever she asked about that, Daddy only cried again, so Essie assumed it had something to do with Mommy.

            She didn't understand though, why would anything related to Mommy make Daddy cry...?

AN: Ah...this was...depressing, to say the least.  *sigh*  Like I said before, I wanted to see what could have happened in the "upper world" when Sector Seven fell, and this is what I came up with.  Please R&R


End file.
